Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2011

If you are new to the entrepreneurial world of startups, you are likely confused by the terminology of seed-stage, lean startups, micro-VCs, and Super Angels. The good news is that he is all about helping early-stage startups, the hard part for entrepreneurs is figuring out what it takes to play. Early-stage startup.

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View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2021

It turns out capital is not a weapon, especially in the early stages of building a business, and even experienced founders who can raise huge sums often realize this and right-size their asks. But I’d say that it’s obvious that YC has been the most powerful force in the seed stage startup and VC industry over the last 10 years.

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Dilution Later Stage Portfolio Technical Review 399

Gust

JULY 8, 2012

If you are new to the entrepreneurial world of startups, you are likely confused by the terminology of seed-stage, lean startups, micro-VCs, and Super Angels. The good news is that he is all about helping early-stage startups. Early-stage startup. Every startup is early-stage to someone.

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Feld Thoughts

MAY 6, 2021

The program has been running in Colorado supporting pre-seed to post-seed stage startups at the intersection of conservation and technology since 2018. This program invests in the following areas: natural-based solutions to climate change providing sustainable food and water protecting land and water.

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Seed Stage Colorado Early Stage Programming 240

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

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Due Diligence Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Preferred Stock 271

View from Seed

MAY 2, 2019

As the seed stage that atomized and series A rounds have become larger and more traction based, the paths to series A have changed. 500K in angel or pre-seed funding -> Raise a $2–3M institutional seed -> Raise an A. This is the logical path that one would think is pretty “standard” for early stage companies.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2020

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

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Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Seed Stage 308

View from Seed

MARCH 22, 2016

This is for the early-stage companies — the entrepreneurs with great ideas and tireless work ethics who feel like they’ve emailed half of the country’s news outlets with nothing but the rare “thanks, but not interested” reply to show for it. Will the average person care which language you wrote your program in? The irony hurts.

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Seed Stage San Francisco Startup CTO Hire 120

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

Another Area of Concern is in the Seed Investor Class. I have also heard LPs express concern over the last few years about the seed stage of venture. One narrative is that too many funds have been created, and without a strong sense of differentiation, there will be too many mediocre seed funds.

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Venture Capital LP Silicon Valley Marketing 150

View from Seed

JUNE 10, 2020

Many of these Founders we wouldn’t have had an opportunity to connect with if we hadn’t launched this program. When the point of the program is a Demo Day show at the end, all of the participating companies need to be in lock-step. all designed to scale, it requires a logistical effort with a rigid timeline.

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Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

In another we decended into a debate about our 5 year forecasts (I built the models so fielded most of these questions), and it became clear they probably weren’t the best fit for our Series A round (this group is no longer in the early-stage VC business). then we integrate loyalty programs, CRM, etc., link] dazhi chen.

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Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

As the seed-stage startup fundraise process has received more transparency in recent years, ranging from published advice on how to raise seed capital to increased availability through AngelList, Funders Club, and various accelerator programs, I’ve noticed another trend emerging.

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Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

” Making early-stage investment capital accessible to a broader range of founders is the impetus behind my own investments in companies like Concrete Rose Capital , 645 Ventures , and Village Global , among others. But inequitable access to seed-stage capital is a pervasive structural issue.

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Technical Review America Government Silicon Valley 28

techcrunch.com

APRIL 26, 2013

In December, AngelList , a service that matches early-stage startups with investors, debuted the ability to allow accredited investors to actually invest in startups on the platform with as little as $1,000. This is just the next phase of AngelList’s evolution into a one-stop shop for seed-stage companies and their backers.

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Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 6, 2013

Some recent examples include the passage of legislation expanding crowdfunding under the JOBS Act and meetings similar to one hosted last month by the Global Accelerator Network in which we worked with the Small Business Administration to gather 16 accelerators to demo their programs for the White House and SBA funders.

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America Washington Small Business Administration SBA 151

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 20, 2017

A key ingredient of Techstars accelerator programs is our experienced and engaged mentor community. Our first two pilot funds will be the 2017 city programs in Austin and Boston, launching on January 23rd. AngelList syndicates helps enable seed stage investing at scale.

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Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Vertical 70

Professor VC

SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

How would Billy Beane have done as an early stage investor? Below is a short description of their philosophy: "The part of our philosophy that makes us most different from other startup investors is that we dont believe gut feel is a reliable indicator of potential at the seed stage. ProfessorVC. Steve Bennet. at 2:32 PM.

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Technical Review Early Stage San Jose Angel Investor 38

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2016

Getting investors to trust you with their money is always a challenge, and it’s even more difficult in the early stages, where you don’t have a significant revenue stream, a few customers, or maybe even a product yet. At these stages, it’s all about you, and your ability to communicate and execute effectively.

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Due Diligence Intellectual Property Preferred Stock Seed Stage 120

Feld Thoughts

MAY 8, 2012

Yesterday I sent emails out passing on participating in two seed rounds for companies I really like. They had lots of investors trying to invest and each company was competitive with two other seed stage companies we’ve seen in the past 30 days. This translates into about a dozen new investments a year plus or minus a few.

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Hunter Walker

MARCH 8, 2014

Between the two is a hypergrowth stage where your initial product has great traction but there’s still urgency and risk in execution. Instead of just concept mocks and ideas for marketing programs, you can get real data and feedback on your team’s efforts.

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Mucker Lab

APRIL 2, 2014

billion on a $60 million investment in WhatsApp, the seed- and early-stage funding landscape had already changed significantly. Most major VC firms have significantly scaled back their seed-stage investment programs. Even before Sequoia Capital made $3.5

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View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2017

All things being equal, seed and early stage startups are not usually well suited to take strategic investments. Startups at this stage are still seeking PMF and scalable growth, so their long-run strategic fit with a corporate VC is often still in flux. 2) Is now the right time for us?

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Strategic Investors Post-Money Valuation Seed Stage Cofounder 120

Feld Thoughts

JULY 26, 2010

There is a lot more transparency than there ever has been, the structural dynamics of early stage investing are moving around a lot, and entrepreneurs have more clarity on their choices, ways to figure out who is good and who is bad, and ways to get access to great choices than ever before.

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Angel Investor Early Stage Seed Stage Cofounder 122

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

Much of the slack at seed stage funding is taken up by the Russian state. In sharp contrast to the US and UK governments, in 2013, the Russian Government provided around 38 percent of seed deals and 24 percent of startup stage funding. The role of the Russian Government.

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Russia Europe Government Vertical 140

Ben's Blog

APRIL 7, 2021

Corporate incentives: Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 developed a broad-based equity incentive compensation program known as stock options. For states with state income taxes, creating state/local level Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) rules to incent company development and early-stage investing would help too.

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Silicon Valley Non-Compete San Francisco Government 36

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 16, 2021

Out of hundreds of applications, we selected six pre-seed stage teams building companies shaping a brighter collective future by combining software and creativity to drive change in the lives of everyday people — their businesses include everything from empowering local main street businesses to making automobile insurance more accessible.

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Hearpreneur

MAY 4, 2019

In the same way an MBA program teaches a form of management for administering and growing existing businesses, entrepreneurship and venture capital are, together, a form of management for discovering and building new businesses.

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Cofounder Founder Entrepreneur Venture Capital 67

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

Thus, there is going to be a bit of tightening within the early stage VC space in India over the next couple of years. Furthermore, given the government’s programs to attract top notch VCs and tech companies, it has become a great place to raise capital and base your Asian operations over the past half-decade.

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Asia Silicon Valley India China 123

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Obviously the funding environment has changed considerably in 2022 but as early-stage investors our daily jobs stay largely unchanged. And while over the past few years we have been laser-focused on cash returns, we are equally planting seeds for our next 10–15 years of returns by actively investing in today’s market.

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San Francisco Early Stage Venture Capital Los Angeles 408

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

We’ll look at the model stage-by-stage. Concept and Seed Stage In the Concept and Seed Stage, founders capture their passion and vision for the new company and turn them into a set of key ideas, which quickly becomes a business plan, sometimes on the back of the proverbial napkin.

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Campus Entrepreneurship

MARCH 8, 2011

The leaders have seed funds that give students a chance to explore the feasibility of their ideas. Stanford is a leading campus when it comes to entrepreneurship and a new seed fund deepens the web of entrepreneurship on campus. Will more early stage investors start official partnerships with campuses?

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 13, 2010

Investment in training, adherence to process, global knowledge sharing systems, quality control / partner reviews and campus recruitment programs that attracted the right talent. “Reality is, at the seed stage, most rocketships look more like the cardboard variety you’d make as a kid than something NASA developed.

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View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2023

With three accelerator cohorts under our belts and 17 graduated teams to turn to for feedback, we’re more confident than ever that our white-glove approach has lent itself well to the kind of program our industry was lacking. Read on to learn more and decide whether this is the right program for you.

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Programming Sacramento San Francisco Founder 156

The Next Web

OCTOBER 23, 2013

There aren’t a tonne of funds focused on seed-stage funding worldwide, but we can add a new one to the list today. SparkLabs , the company behind the accelerator program in Korea , is expanding its scope with its first seed-stage fund that will “help great startups go global.”.

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Seed Stage Asia Silicon Valley 139

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

So they set up seed programs that allowed for rapid decisions for $500k or less, often done as convertible debt for both speed and cost reasons. I was an early cynic. Many VCs who do lots of seed stage deals are very supportive and active. I think they definitely qualify as a VC and not a seed fund.

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Software Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Southern California 283

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

With new micro VC entrants into to early-stage investing plus increased competition from angels, incubators and the like – traditional VCs have taken notice. So VCs spent a couple of years experimenting with earlier-stage investing, which is OK. The Explosion in Early-Stage Innovation. There are also others.

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Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

The popularity of convertible notes is increasing in the world of startup financing, especially in seed-stage companies. It is attractive for seed-stage companies that have not had time to show much traction in terms of their product or revenue. For any (early stage) startup, the team is the most critical asset.

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Cap Table Pre-Money Valuation Stock Options Option Pool 112